Reflections on 114th National Day Address by His Majesty the King -Dec 17 2021

Our King- the beacon of hope for the people of Bhutan

I would like to start by submitting my heartfelt thank you to His Majesty the King for being solicitous of the well-being and acknowledging the efforts of all Bhutanese like me studying hard abroad.

I would like to set the context of the 114th National Day Address by mentioning His Majesty's address on the 113th National Day to realize a dream of making Bhutan a developed/wealthy nation within our lifetime. The 114th National Day address is a continuation of this relentless and altruistic vision of His Majesty the King. Analyzing all 16 National Day Addresses, His Majesty the King has firmly established himself at people’s hearts as the symbol of unity and protector of people and most importantly the beacon of a brighter and wealthy nation for Bhutan. A hope that gives us all a purpose in our life. A hope of a wealthy nation not built around effortless Paksamjenshing or natural resources or lies and deceit. But a wealthy nation built on a true and sustainable wealth accumulated through hard work, knowledge, and skills of resilient and future-ready citizens. 

A TRUE Chakravartian King putting Good governance at the centre

Perhaps, listening to His Majesty’s speech today, any Buddhist philosophers can undoubtedly say that Bhutan stands forth the closest resemblance to Buddha’s concept of a republic governed at the centre by a powerful but compassionate people’s King- a Chakravarti King or King Mahasammata- Mangpö Kurwai Gyalpo, whose legitimacy was based on popular consent of ensuring good governance to the people. I see Chakravartian King when His Majesty uses the powerful narratives of i) allegorical nuances of a woman requiring money not only to finance her day-to-day activities but also to fulfil her family goals, and ii) making a Royal Command on the National Day by rearticulating people’s hopes and aspirations and conversations of every household at the dinner table. His Majesty the King is rightfully people’s King.

The way forward- Removing pervasive poignance and enhancing governance through “Nga” 

I am confident that the vernacular “Nga min du” repeated several times by His Majesty will have ubiquitous realization and influence for all Bhutanese people to walk away from the abyss and precipice of our ugly truth of misplaced compassion that hinders the vehement vision to become a wealthy/developed nation. His Majesty has consistently expressed pervasive poignance necessitating deep reflection of stagnancy, complacency, and inadequacy of the systems to move forward for progressive 21st century. On the 113th National day, the solution from the King was to bring reforms in the civil service and education. On 114th National day, the solution from our King is to revitalize the lost “Nga”.

For the RCSC- Revitalizing the lost “Nga” to ensure accountability 

The RCSC is empowered with a weapon to revitalize the lost “Nga” to fix accountability. Some immediate steps I recommend the RCSC to revitalize the lost "Nga" are: i) implement aggressive exit management strategies to get rid of the underperformers, nonperformers, and corrupt officials to rebrand the Civil Service away from mediocrity to Civil Service with “best and the brightest”; ii) handpick performers to the right positions even at the executive level if required iii) establish rigorous platforms to upgrade/upscale skilling programs to the entire civil servants like De-suung re-skilling programs. In particular, I see there are lurking maladies in a few people and chronic systems that His Majesty wants the rectify. 

The road ahead is intimidating for many. But our destination of a “wealthy nation within our lifetime” is not insurmountable and it provides enormous hope for a better future. Let us not waste our time. Let us gather our arms and ammunitions and rip-roar to move ahead to pursue this common destination of a “wealthy nation within our lifetime”. Thank you, His Majesty, for your enlightened leadership.

Understanding the new world of Central Bank Digital Currency

The Press Release by the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan (Central Bank) issued on 23rd September 2021 stated Bhutan will pilot a project on "central bank digital currency" (CBDC) in collaboration with Ripple Labs, Inc. of USA. However, the word CBDC is new and arcane to many. So this is an attempt to demystify CBDC... 

Circular by RMA                                                                                                                                                                

BTW this is my preliminary Draft

I will be attending my class on Crypto and CBDC on Nov 8 2021... so expect a new version after tha,,,

I have used very informal language as well...

So... ahmm .. enjoy...

I want to zoom down on what type of CBDC using the figures used by the BIS and make several inferences

BIS- Bank of International Settlements states there are thee architecture of CBDC

So indirect CBDC will imply similar to today's system of mBoB...etc. So rule out this for the pilot project the RMA is currently pursuing.
Direct CBDC would require massive technological capabilities...Because RMA will handle the entire payment system by itself- handling all the transactions. So a project that Bhutan is implementing could be Hybrid architecture.

Now How will CBDC infrastructure look like: will it be conventional (centralized) or decentralize using Digital Ledger Technology (it is a kind of blockchain but - let's say blockchain in a controlled environment for now). Refer to the BIS figure below and watch out for the four possible outcomes on the right which can be further grouped into two: accounts and token-based. 
the Centralised CBDC accounts and the token system might have higher transaction costs as its more centralize and conventional approach. The Project Bhutan is exploring should be either a DLT account or token-based. Further strengthening earlier inference of CBDC architecture of Indirect/ Hybrid CBDC.

How do you safeguard Your privacy while using CBDC?

Ok so remember the previous graph at the accounts vs token ... Account-based is more like a conventional based system. This system can pose a challenge for CBDC to operate as it implies mapping each individual to one and only one identifier across the entire payment system. it can impair universal access.

On the other hand, a token-based system can ensure universal access as anybody can obtain a digital signature- offer good safeguard by default. The problem is if you lose the secret key then it will be difficult to trace the... u know what I mean.

Are you still confused between an account and a token-based system? Then account-based means you have a username and password. In a token-based system, your password is valid for a certain period of time like google authenticator, Duo mobile, etc.

Therefore I imply its a digital token-based safeguard system

Preliminary conclusions: RMA will be moving towards hybrid/indirect CBDC architecture with DLT token-based infrastructure

extra info

Some CBDC projects studied by BIS